News Release - WA Dept. of Ecology
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Aug. 12, 1999
99-156
Contact: Joye Redfield-Wilder, public information manager, (509) 575-2610
YAKIMA - State, federal and tribal water managers in Central Washington signed a landmark agreement today pledging to work as partners when making water management decisions in the Yakima River Basin.
The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), Yakama Nation and U. S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) reached the pact after nearly two years of negotiations to resolve several outstanding legal cases and other crucial water-resource issues in the region.
Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons made the announcement in Yakima with Reclamation regional director Bill McDonald and Yakama Nation tribal chairman William Yallup Sr. ''Rather than continuing a cycle of lawsuits and disagreements over how water is managed, we all decided to sit down at the same table and work this out,'' Fitzsimmons said.
As a result of talks, the three major water managers will launch a $6 million study to learn more about the link between the Yakima River system and the region’s groundwater aquifers. While the study is under way, Ecology will hold off on making groundwater permit decisions.
Study results will provide water managers with the tools they need to make consistent water-right decisions and to address a backlog of new permit requests pending before Ecology. Information from the study may also be valuable to watershed planners looking for local solutions.
''As water managers, we're faced with myriad challenges,'' said Fitzsimmons. ''We all want more water, but we also have to protect senior water rights. And on top of that, we need to set aside more water in rivers and streams for fish.''
McDonald echoed Fitzsimmons' remarks, pointing out that the Bureau of Reclamation has been working to increase stream flows in the Yakima River through water conservation and water acquisition activities of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Program.
''Scientific evidence does suggest the ground water and mainstem Yakima River and its tributaries are hydraulically connected,'' McDonald said. ''Given this connection, Reclamation's program of purchasing and leasing water for instream flow would be compromised by continued groundwater development. That's why it's so important for all agencies to agree on how to proceed.''
In 1993, the Yakama Nation challenged dozens of agricultural well permits issued by Ecology in the Rattlesnake Hills and Moxee areas. The Yakama Nation maintains groundwater withdrawals diminish surface-water supplies, jeopardizing fish, habitat and senior surface-water rights. Three years later, Reclamation joined the settlement discussions.
Recently, settlement agreements were reached with individual permit recipients. Settling parties received groundwater permits if they agreed to compensate for the effects of their groundwater withdrawals by contributing money to a fund managed by the Bureau of Reclamation. The money will be used to buy replacement water rights to improve stream flows.
Looking to the future, the three agencies began discussing the effect that nearly 1,000 pending water right requests could have on surface-water supplies in the basin.
''As a result of these talks, we decided we would benefit from a groundwater study that would give us a common platform for making sound water-resource management decisions,'' said Carroll Palmer, deputy director for natural resources for the Yakama Nation.
Within five years, the agencies expect to have a detailed groundwater model that, combined with existing information, will provide the technical data needed to efficiently make groundwater permit decisions and to manage transfers of existing water rights.
''The model will be used to predict what effect individual and cumulative groundwater withdrawals would have on the river and to evaluate whether there are ways to mitigate those withdrawals,'' said Bob Barwin, a water-resources manager for Ecology.
The U.S. Geologic Survey will undertake the study and develop the model. ''Their unassailable reputation for objectivity and technical competence made the Geological Survey the obvious choice to do this work,'' said Tom Ring, hydrogeologist with the Yakama Nation Water Program.
Until study results are available, the three parties have agreed to conservatively manage water resources in the basin.
Within the next 120 days, Ecology will propose an administrative rule to curtail decisions on new groundwater-withdrawal requests until the groundwater model is in place. Decisions could continue to be made on water-right transfer and change requests, public health and safety emergencies, and applications that provide substantial environmental enhancement. Also excepted would be domestic water use from exempt wells.
The new rule would undergo public review and comment prior to adoption. Workshops and hearings will be conducted to inform water users in the valley of the reasons for the withdrawal and how it would work.
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